The Italian Cook Book, Maria Gentile [best classic literature txt] 📗

beat it with the back of the knife and flatten with its blades. Put the stuffing inside and roll up and tie tightly with a string crosswise. Roast or bake with oil and salt. 139 STUFFED CHICKEN (Pollo ripieno)

For a middle-sized fowl use the following ingredients: two sausages, the liver and giblets of the fowl, eight or ten chestnuts well roasted, some pieces of mushrooms, a taste of nutmeg, one egg. If, instead of a fowl, it is a turkey, double the dose.

Begin by giving the sausages and the giblets half a cooking, moistening them with a little broth if necessary. Season with a little salt and pepper on account of the sausages that already contain them. Remove them and in the gravy that remains put a crumb of bread, in order to obtain with a little broth two tablespoonfuls of thick pap. Skin the sausages, chop the chicken giblets and the giblets and grind everything together with the chestnuts, the egg and the pap; this is the stuffing with which the fowl is to be filled, to be baked afterward. It is more tasty cold than hot, and it can also be cut better.

140 CHICKEN WITH SAUCE PIQUANTE (Pollo al diavolo)

This ought to be cooked with Cayenne pepper and served with a highly seasoned sauce, but not everybody likes that and a simpler way to cook the chicken "al diavolo" is the following:

Take a young chicken, remove the neck and the legs, open it all in front and flatten it open as much as possible. Wash and wipe dry with a towel, then put it on the grill and when it begins to brown turn it. Grease it with melted butter or with oil, using a brush, and season with salt and pepper. The later may be Cayenne pepper for those who like it. Keep turning and greasing until it is all cooked.

To prepare the sauce piquante that many like with chicken broiled in this way, put four tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan and when it begins to brown add two tablespoonfuls of flour and stir until it is well browned, but do not let it burn. Draw to a cooler place on the range and slowly add two cupfuls of brown stock, stirring constantly, add salt and a dash of Cayenne and let simmer for ten minutes. In another saucepan boil four tablespoonfuls of vinegar one tablespoonful of chopped onion, one teaspoonful of sugar rapidly for five minutes; then add it to the sauce and at the same time add one tablespoonful of chopped capers two tablespoonfuls of chopped pickle and one teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar. Stir well and let cook for two minutes to heat the pickles. If the sauce becomes too thick dilute it with a little water.

This sauce is excellent for baked fish and all roasts and boiled meats, besides being a fitting condiment for the chicken "al diavolo".

141 CHICKEN WITH HAM (Pollo in porchetta)

Fill a chicken with thin strips of ham, about half an inch wide. Add three cloves (or sections) of garlic, two little bunches of fennel and a few grains of pepper. Season outside with salt and pepper and cook in a saucepan with butter, or preferably bake in the oven. Sausages cut lengthwise and previously skinned can be substituted for the ham.

142 CHICKEN SAUTÉ (Pollo saltato)

Take a young chicken, remove the neck and trim the wings. Cut away the legs. Cut the chicken into six pieces. Remove some of the bones. Beat an egg with a teaspoonful of water and place in it the pieces of chicken after dipping them in flour and seasoning generously with salt and pepper. Leave the pieces in the egg until it is time for cooking. Then take the pieces one by one, sprinkle with bread crumbs and place a saucepan with a good piece of butter on the fire. When the butter begins to brown put in the pieces of chicken from the side of the skin, then turn them when browned to the other side. Let them on a good fire for about ten minutes. Serve with lemon. The chicken prepared in this way is good also when cold.

143 AFRICAN HEN (Gallina di Faraone)

This fowl, that resembles the partridge, should not be too fresh, like all game.

The best way to cook the African hen is roasted at the spit. Put in the inside a ball of butter dipped in salt and wrap it in a piece of paper greased with butter and sprinkled with salt. This paper must be removed when the fowl is nearly cooked, and then the cooking is completed greasing with more butter and adding more salt.

144 TAME DUCK ROASTED (Anatra domestica arrosto)

Salt it inside and bandage all the breast with slices of bacon, large and thin. Grease with oil and salt moderately when the cooking is almost complete. If you have a wild duck grease with butter, as the meat is drier.

145 TURKEY (Tacchino)

The turkey has been imported to Europe from America, but it is nevertheless a well known dish in Italian families, although not enjoying the popularity that it has on this side of the ocean. When roasted it is generally larded moderately with little pieces of garlic and bay-leaf or rosemary and seasoned with a hash of corned beef or bacon, a little butter, salt and pepper, tomato sauce or tomato paste diluted in water. The breast, flattened until it is about half an inch thick and seasoned generously some hours before cooking with oil, salt and pepper, is excellent broiled on the grill.

146 LOIN OF PORK ROASTED (Lombo di maiale arrosto)

The loin of pork, cut in little pieces forms an excellent roast at the spit. The pieces of pork are to be divided by little pieces of toast and greased with oil.

If the pork is to be baked, choose that piece of the loin that has its ribs and that may weigh six or eight pounds. Lard it with garlic, rosemary or bay leaf and a few cloves, but moderately, and season with salt and pepper.

This roast is very popular in Italy, where they call it arista.

147 LEG OF LAMB (Agnello all'Orientale)

This is a way to cook lamb in use in the Orient and adopted by the Italians, especially in Southern Italy. The leg of lamb is to be larded with the larding pin with slices of bacon seasoned with salt and pepper, greased with butter or milk, or milk alone and salted when half cooked.

The Arabs, who are very fond of this dish, do not lard it, as pork is forbidden by their religion, but cook it with an abundance of milk.

148 BROILED PIGEON (Piccione in gratella)

Take a young, but fat pigeon, divide it in two parts lengthwise and flatten it well with the hands. Then put it to brown in oil for four or five minutes, just to harden the meat. Season when still hot with salt and pepper, then arrange it as follows.

Melt in the fire, without boiling it, a piece of butter and mix the liquid butter with one beaten egg. Dip the pigeon in the butter and egg and keep it until it absorbs them. Then sprinkle with bread crumbs ground fine. Cook on a grill on a a low fire and serve with a sauce or a side dish.

149 STEAK IN THE SAUCEPAN (Bistecca nel tegame)

If you have a steak that does not appear to be too tender, put it in a saucepan with a little piece of butter and some good olive oil, with a taste of garlic and bay-leaf or rosemary. Add, if necessary, a little broth or water or tomato sauce and serve with potatoes cooked in the gravy that can be made more abundant with more broth, butter and tomato sauce.

150 VEAL KIDNEY WITH ANCHOVY (Rognone alle acciughe)

Take a veal kidney, remove the fat, cut it open and cover with boiling water. When the water has cooled, remove the kidney, wipe with a cloth, and pass through it clean sticks to make it stay open. Season with melted butter, salt and pepper and leave it so prepared for an hour or two.

Then take another piece of butter and two or three anchovies. Clean the latter, chop and mix with the butter with the blade of a knife, making a ball. Cook the kidney on the grill, but not too much, in order to keep it tender, put it on a plate and grease when hot with the ball of butter and anchovies.

151 VEAL KIDNEY SLICED (Rognone di vitello affettato)

Cut in thin slices one or two veal kidneys, removing the granulous part that is to be found in the middle, and put the slices in a saucepan with a piece of butter, a bunch of parsley chopped very fine together with a clove of garlic. Add a cup of hot broth; salt moderately and let it cook without boiling, until the sauce is reduced to about one third.

One tablespoonful of vinegar adds a pleasant taste to this dish.

152 BROILED MUTTON KIDNEY (Rognone di montone alla graticola)

After washing the kidneys, remove the filmy skin that covers them and cut them in the middle without, however, detaching completely the two parts. Season with salt and pepper, grease with oil and put them on a strong fire on the grill. After ten or twelve minutes they will be broiled. Serve hot with parsley and slices of lemon.

153 MUTTON KIDNEY FRIED (Granelli di montone fritti)

Wash, remove the skin that covers the kidneys and cut in very thin slices. Wipe with a cloth, dip first in ground bread crumbs, then in a beaten egg mixed with melted butter, then again in the bread crumbs. This must be done rapidly, at the time of frying, otherwise the bread crumbs absorb the moisture of the kidney and make them too hard.

Melt a piece of butter in a saucepan on a strong fire and when it begins to brown, dip the slices of kidney. Turn often, sprinkle with a little parsley chopped fine, salt and serve with lemon.

154 BEEF TONGUE BOILED (Lingua di bue lessa)

The tongue is boiled like the beef. When half cooked remove the skin, which is not nice to see and has no nutritious elements, although it is is served with a purée of peas, or spinach or potatoes or beans, etc. But it can be served simply with sprigs of parsley.

155 BEEF TONGUE WITH OLIVES (Lingua di bue alle olive)

Scald the tongue and peel off the skin. Then put it back to boil until fully cooked.

Melt a piece of butter and brown half a medium sized onion cut in slices. When the onion is browned remove it from the butter and dilute in the latter a teaspoonful of flour. When the flour begins to brown, thin it with one or two cups of soup stock hot and passed through a sieve. Mix and boil for ten minutes, seasoning with salt and pepper.

When the sauce is prepared place the tongue in the saucepan containing it and let it cook again on a low fire for about an hour, turning it over frequently and keeping it moistened with the gravy. Cut some olives in a spiral to remove the stone and place it in the saucepan with the tongue. This becomes more tasty if left with the olives for one or two days.

156 STEWED BEEF TONGUE (Lingua di bue in stufato)

Clean a fresh tongue of beef; put it in a plate, salt it generously and put it back in the ice-box or in the pantry, until the following day.

After twenty-four hours, scald it in boiling water, skin and lard with little pieces of bacon and put